


shapes of faith and knowledge of you

by avoidfilledwithcelluloid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: It's Finn/Poe that's exploring Poe, M/M, Poe-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 11:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5741167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidfilledwithcelluloid/pseuds/avoidfilledwithcelluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Finn looks really cute while he’s asleep. Poe’s not ashamed to admit that. Personally, he thinks his own sleeping face is pretty noteworthy but then again he’s never stared at it the way he’s staring at Finn’s."</p><p>Another Finn is recovering from getting a lightsaber to the back, Poe is falling hard n' fast fic to add to ur readin selection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shapes of faith and knowledge of you

**Author's Note:**

> mmmmmmMMMMMMMMM. i promised myself i'd pump out a fic over winter break and here, at the precipce of school starting again, i have done just such a deed. I absolutely LOVED poe dameron and i was just enamored w/ his relationship w/ finn so i thought i'd toss my hat in the ring. much thanks to all my friends who heard me whine abt not contributing to the star wars fandom. i'm finally doing it. title is from the grimes' song "belly of the beast".
> 
> as always, i really, really hope y'all enjoy it.

When they wheel Finn out on the stretcher and Poe can finally see, in full view, the sweat on his forehead he’s got a split second where he’s worried that maybe Finn is going to die. The thought like too thick food rations slides down his throat to clump down flat in his stomach. But there’s no time to play the down in the dumps guy so instead of staying still Poe does what he knows is the best course of action: running after the transport vehicle Finn’s on.

BB-8 doesn’t like the medical bay. She tweets her distress at Poe while he’s waiting outside the room. The General is outside too but she’s busy talking to Rey, the girl they saved. Poe watches both of them confer over the events, their memories barely cooled off. Just imagining the exploding Starkiller base makes Poe’s fingers stutter over the plastic chair he’s in like he’s still holding a steering wheel and there’s four plates of glass between him and space. He thinks about the wind in a lush forest, the way his mother’s hair would sweep into a ponytail, an unmoving pillar of stone until his body doesn’t want to jolt upright. When the General looks at Rey, her eyes are a slow descent into grief. Rey’s are already there.

Poe’s index finger twitches when he thinks about death. One of the staff comes out of Finn’s room and says he’s been stabilized. Poe gets up, legs strangely wobbly. Was this what Finn felt when he saw Poe coming out of an X Fighter, a man who came un-sunk from the sands right back into his life? In a twist he saw coming, Poe sincerely hopes that the fluttering excitement in his belly is exactly what Finn felt.

“It will be a while before he’s ready to wake,” the staff member says, fussing with the IV in Finn’s arm. “The wound is one that must heal while his body is still.”

Rey puts her hand over Finn’s forearm. Her fingernails are ragged but her touch is assured. She touches like someone who doesn’t have room for doubt, has been burned too many times by hesitance. Poe doesn’t touch Finn when she does. Somehow he wants to be alone for that.

“I’ll come back for you,” she says, promise laced in every word. “I only have to go for a little while. I’ll come back.”

The General doesn’t touch Finn. She just nods at him. Poe imagines if he could see her, Finn would nod back. As it stands, there’s only the flicker of his eyes beneath his eyelids for an imagined response.

“Good work,” she says and then adds with a spark finally showing beneath her sadness. “Get better soon. There’s a war coming.”

BB-8 titters around Rey like she’s trying to say everything as fast as possible. Rey kneels down, places a hand on top of BB-8’s head and talks to her in a low voice, one that Poe can’t hear. Instead the General’s attention has turned to him. His spine straightens on instinct.

“Poe,” she says. “You’re staying with him, I presume?”

“I thought I’d stick around,” Poe says with a spring to his words that he hopes hides the lighting storm of anxious mutterings in his head. “Keep an eye on this guy.”

“Good. He’ll need someone to help reorient him,” The General’s fingers tighten into a loose fist. “You’ll be able to run missions in between, yes?”

“Of course,” he says. “Can’t let the Resistance down.”

“You never do,” she takes a deep breath. “I’m sure you can handle yourself from here. Rey, would you come with me? We have to discuss the details of your journey. My brother isn’t exactly a walk down the beach.”

Once they leave Poe looks down at BB-8. She tweets twice at him a teasing sentiment. Hands on his hips, he laughs in response.

“I don’t know about forever,” he says to her and then looks back at Finn, whose chest rises and falls in bisected rhythm. “But I think I’m capable of waiting long enough.”

BB-8 hums and rolls over to knock against Poe’s boot. He scoots her away with one foot.

“I’m not pining,” he says and she hums again, this time like she’s heard the words before. “That was one time and you know it. I don’t pine.”

He’s met with a chorus of beeps that tell him that’s far from the truth.

“It’s just that I’ve been through a lot with Finn,” Poe reasons to her. “I have to stick around. And don’t bring up any of the old Yavin stuff. I only liked that guy for the ship he had and when he left I was just missing the bolts that brought him there.”

BB-8 makes a noise that sounds unconvinced. She knocks into his leg again, her tweets rounding out but still taking a firm tone.

“Maybe it was then that,” he admits, rubbing at his elbow. There had been a lot of supposed pinings between the then and now. Pilots who had landed on Yavin to speak to his mother had enamored him to the point where he would follow them around. Ask them constant questions. Then he’d come to the academy and it was every day a new crush. Everyone around him held themselves with strength and smiled with brilliant teeth. Every infatuation felt like the end all be all. Every feeling that caught him was a deep one. He knew the truth of his own emotions; Poe had a very easy heart.

Finn takes even, regimented breaths. Maybe in his dreams he’s still aboard a First Order ship, getting orders from that chrome dome Poe only glimpsed at. Poe watches him for twenty minutes, taking breaks in between to talk to BB-8 whose hard drive is loaded with stories about her little adventure in the stars. After an hour Poe gets a chair to sit in and BB-8 brings up some old holodeck readings he’s been meaning to revisit. An hour and a half later he falls asleep reading a book about time travel. When Poe wakes up BB-8 has gone into sleep mode and someone has changed Finn’s sheets.

…

Finn looks really cute while he’s asleep. Poe’s not ashamed to admit that. Personally, he thinks his own sleeping face is pretty noteworthy but then again he’s never stared at it the way he’s staring at Finn’s.

The medical bay at the Resistance base is a dingy beige set of rooms that are all connected by short hallways where little windows will show tired pilots with bone sticking out of their skin. Poe keeps running into his peers who have pieces of orange jumpsuit permanently burned onto their forearms, their chest and even one Miraluka who had the fabric singed into the back of their hand. All of them have something to say about the Stormtrooper in the last room on the right.

“Do you think he’s alright now?” a younger pilot asks. “I just. Can someone like that be on our side?”

They’ve got dark hair that’s held up in a complicated bun and a name Poe can’t remember. He shrugs, pretends he hasn’t really made an assessment and keeps moving. Everyone loves to talk about Finn, make a big kick up over where his loyalties lie but once Poe gets to his room there’s no one in sight. Probably all a bunch of scaredy cats over what will happen when he wakes up and hears about their trash talk.

The medical staff knows the schedule now. Poe will take breakfast in the mess hall and then wander in a focused half step until he reaches the med-bay where he’ll pretend that his flirting is what gets him a free pass to hang out in Finn’s room and the nurse will pretend it’s because she’s got a big heart for those soft eyes. Poe spends mid-morning reading the holodeck news to Finn, showing him anything that mentions the recent Starkiller base battle.

“It’s messed up that they don’t mention you buddy,” he tells Finn. He takes the slightly accelerated breathing he sees as a sympathetic response. “It’s okay though. They don’t say anything about me either and _I’m_ the handsome one in our duo.”

Poe had tried to decorate the medical room so when Finn wakes up he sees something warm and welcoming instead of the blank drab walls already there. So far the staff has let him put up a couple banners he made with leftover scrap paper and scissors. There are garlands upon garlands of snipped up paperwork snowflakes around Finn’s sleeping body. One of his squadron, a humanoid from a colder planet, had taught them all how to cut out the shapes during leave time. While he pins them to the walls Poe hums a song his grandfather used to play on his holodeck. The bars are lower in register, just low enough for his voice to reach them. When Finn wakes up Poe decides he’s going to show him how to make paper snowflakes.

Finn doesn’t wake up for two more weeks. His room is full of snowflakes by then.

…

It’s beginning to get cold on D’Qar. Instead of bringing paper snowflakes, Poe starts to bring knitting supplies. When the medical staff isn’t looking, he measures Finn for a sweater. He’s going to need it when he wakes up, soon. A few military small timers have started to come around to see the little Stormtrooper who could and they give Poe’s knitting needles pointed, surprised looks. He holds up the wool and the knitting needles as gesturing tools.

“Just passing the time,” he tells them to a chorus of nervous laughter. Some of his squads come by to see how Poe is doing after the first wave of attack. They take drinks and holodecks to trade news clippings from other galaxies that have had contact with the First Order. Word of the Resistance victory has spread like milk spilt on a kitchen floor. At first Poe is excited to see the familiar faces of his squadron, the way they get excited over any bit of information that shows favor for the Resistance but its tiring. After a while he asks them why they even come to the room when he knows they have no interest in Finn’s recovery.

“It ain’t like you go a lot of other places,” Jessika Pava laughs. She’s looking through an old holo-doc about the missing Skywalker, flicking her finger to look at the pictures. “Easier to find you here than in your dorm Commander.”

“Someone’s got to be here when he wakes up,” Poe says and Pava looks up from a picture of Skywalker with a protocol droid grinning up a storm. The grip on his knitting needles tightens.

For a while his squad comes in regularly and then, not so much. Doesn’t really matter to Poe whether they come or not. He’s got plenty to do with the sweater he’s almost finished and the socks he’s got planned next. Finn breathes slowly and every once in a while Poe catches his eyes moving under their lids. It’s a small rush that comes from the promise of Finn waking up: like Poe is watching a plant sprouting.

“Hope you don’t mind the sweater’s gonna be white,” he says to Finn, who doesn’t say anything in response. “There’s not a lot of place for making fabric dye around here. I’d ask the General but I don’t think she’s the kinda person who keeps blueberries stashed to dye wool.”

The thought of General Organa suddenly revealing an affinity for the fabric arts makes Poe snort. When Finn wakes up he’s gotta repeat that joke. For now he keeps clicking his needles together. Keeps waiting. The sweater looks really good when he finishes it and Poe calls it a keeper, much better than the lumpy ones he produced before. The socks are going to be a challenge. He’s still not good at making the heels for socks, no matter how many failed attempts he’s left strewn around his room. Instead Poe thinks about knitting a scarf first. One for him and one for Finn. So they can both be warm.

Lumpy white scarves are going to be the next fashion trend for the galaxy. Poe is pretty sure about that.

…

Poe’s getting used to the medical stations, the way everything smells like cleaning products and how the staff walks like their legs are scissors snipping at the ground. It’s been three weeks now. Finn’s fingers twitch now. Part of Poe wants to put his hand over them to still their movement but more of him is too excited by the way Finn’s fingers look moving to do more than grin. He misses the sight of Finn in motion. BB-8 is rolling around the room beeping about something R2-D2 told her, some story about the General that Poe is listening to with the half dedication of someone who has already heard the story. Every once in a while she’ll stop and make a rude twitter over the way Poe’s latest knitting creation looks so he pushes her away with gentle offense.

The socks are mangled but done. He hunted around the outskirts of the Resistance base and found some berries the color of the sand on Jakku. In his room Poe’s been smashing them up, letting them get nice and wet so he can dye the socks later. He’s thinking about the dye waiting under his bunk bed when Finn opens his eyes. It’s the long gasp that jerks Poe into the moment. Finn starts breathing in huge gulps of air, body moving like he’s going to shoot up from the bed. One movement too quick and Finn’s face screws up in a grimace.

“Ah,” he groans, hands fisting in the thin sheets. “Oh man. That’s a problem.”

“You alright there buddy?” Finn’s eyes have scrunched closed but he nods with a clenched jaw. As he settles back his fingers untwist from the sheets and a long breath is expelled. Poe doesn’t move to touch Finn but he wants to.

“Yeah, yeah,” Finn says and without looking at Poe he laughs. “Just forgot about the giant lightsaber cut down my back.”

“Oh yeah,” Poe says. “Pretty tiny detail. Easily forgettable.”

Finn hisses as he moves to face Poe and opens his eyes. They soften and he smiles widely.

“What’s the best pilot in the galaxy doing here?” he asks. Poe gestures to BB-8.

“Someone had to make sure she didn’t get up to trouble waiting for you to wake up,” he says.

“You missed me,” Finn sing songs.

“Maybe a little,” Poe runs a hand through his hair, shakes out his curls and looks at Finn from through his eyelashes. “You gave us a little bit of a scare.”

Finn glances down and BB-8 tweets excitedly at him. Mouth open in confusion, Finn looks back to Poe with a plea for translation.

“She says she missed you,” BB-8 beeps something a little more urgently and Poe nods at her, waving his hand like he was just getting to that detail. “She also says to tell you that Rey is going to come back.”

Finn’s fingers go tight again.

“Come back?” his eyes dart back and forth, the focus in them sharpening like he’s putting together a puzzle. “She left?”

“Soon after you got back from the Starkiller base,” Poe leans forward, elbows on his knees. As he’s about to continue Finn takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“Skywalker,” he says with an air of finality and turns onto his back. “She’s going after Skywalker.”

After Finn puts the pieces together, he’s very quiet. Poe is itching to say something but with his brain flying faster than light speed with things he wants to tell Finn, share with him, he can’t grasp onto just one thought. Instead he just basks in the fact of Finn’s mouth tightening and the way his eyes are sliding around the room, taking in everything. Its intensely comforting to know Finn is existing next to him in full animation. One thought that flashes through Poe’s head is that he should probably call someone from medical to the room but he wants, just for these few minutes, for the hero of the Resistance to only hear his breathing.

“Did you make those?” Finn points at the snowflakes.

“Yeah buddy,” Poe leans back in his chair and follows Finn’s pointing to the biggest garland he’d made. The snowflakes are all the same, full of the twisting holes that make them intricate. “Thought maybe this room needed some sprucing up, you know. Keep it fun.”

“I like them,” Finn says. “You know, it never stopped snowing on the Starkiller. Every day it was more snow. I never thought I would be glad to see a snowflake.”

“Ah, yeah,” Poe suddenly feels the squirm of insecurity through his legs, making him cross them hastily. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

“No, man, listen— I like them,” Finn says and turns to look Poe in the eye. “You made them. I like the snowflakes that you made.”

“Thanks,” Poe says. His legs uncross. “We should probably tell the medical staff you’re up.”

Finn sighs and sinks further into his cot.

“Alright,” he says with reluctance. “Let’s do this.”

…

Finn is allowed to walk around the medical bay and he does so with a slight limp that Poe can’t tell the origin point of. Instead of asking, he starts walking with Finn. During their walks Finn wears the sweater.

“It’s a little itchy,” Finn says the first time he tries it on and then hastily amends his statement. “Not that it’s bad or anything! It’s really, uh, warm. I think I just have sensitive skin, maybe.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Poe waves his hand. “If it’s itchy, we’ll just find a shirt for you to wear underneath. I think I have some extra long sleeves in my bunk.”

Despite the air in the medical bay being dense with the weight of sickness, Finn moves quickly. He’s got a certain hop-to-it-ness in the steps he takes. Poe starts to tell him about what happened while he was out, the small but still interesting events rolling off his tongue like a broken newsreel. In his head he knows he’s talking fast but Poe can’t stop the way his body is jittering with words to tell Finn.

“And that’s, you know, what the General says is going to be our next course of action,” Poe and Finn are ambling along the main concourse of the strategy base. Since the two buildings are connected, it’s easy enough for them to go from the medical bay to the strategy base before Finn’s back starts to ache. The concourse overlooks the war room through a large window. When Finn looks down at the charts and holoscreens all tracking the Falcon’s movements, his face becomes complicated. It’s like someone has turned all the lights out in the house of Finn’s face.

“Do you talk to the General a lot?” Finn asks. Poe shrugs although his brain snatches the question and throws it on a speeding train of thoughts about The Past and Excitement.

“We converse,” Poe says, and tucks his hands in his pockets. He’s got on a pair of cargo pants that don’t feel quite like civilian clothes but aren’t tough enough to be a pilot’s uniform. In the time between Finn’s sweater and socks he made himself another sweater. This one he’s dyed with some leaves he scouted by a tiny tributary within the forest lining the base’s edge. The color is a soft, almost mushy looking green. “I don’t think I’d call us buddies—“

“Really?” Finn’s mouth twitches up. “Seems like that’s what you call everyone.”

“Well,” Poe says. “Let’s pretend that’s just what I call you.”

“No, no,” Finn straightens up from where he’d been leaning to get a better look at the maps. “I think I’ll stick with you calling everyone else buddy and me n’ the General are all special.”

Finn’s got a cane he’s been using for a few days. He’s a model patient, does everything the medical staff asks. Poe remembers getting a good chunk blasted out of his arm once and then, a week before the bandages were supposed to get removed, he had ripped them off in order to lead a strike on a First Order battalion. Finn’s back beneath the thin scrub shirt clenches in what looks like a painful movement.

“Hey,” Poe says and when Finn looks at him he’s grinning. “You wanna see what this place looks like?”

“What?” Finn shakes his head. “I’ve already seen it.”

“No, no,” Poe laughs. “The outside. You haven’t see the outside yet.”

Finn’s eyes go a little wide.

“But I’m not allowed,” he says, the hand on his cane tightening. “I’m supposed to—“

“ _Supposed to_ ,” Poe says the words like he’s never listened to them once. “Don’t do this man. You could be living it up with me, the best pilot in the galaxy, while that sweet D’Qar breeze blows over our shoulders. Admit it: that’s a hell of a lot more fun than pacing the decks.”

An unhurried lightness spreads across Finn’s face. He’s considering the option, which is almost more than Poe could hope for. Finn’s eyes flick to the maps, following the blue trail that tracks the Falcon’s movements. Around the computers and out-prints there’s a bevy of beige suited strategizers and a few orange jumpsuits who are getting their orders for new missions. Poe feels the pop in his bones that signals a sense of jealousy. He hasn’t been assigned anything since the last mission.

The General is leaning over the biggest holo-table. Her hands braced on the curb of it, she’s tracing the same trail Finn’s been eyeing with one finger. The way she moves her head, the snap of her mouth, all strike with the efficiency of a knife. Poe doesn’t need to hear what the General is saying. He knows it’s important the same as all her orders. Poe’s spent years listening to the General but even then he thinks that a few seconds around her is enough to get someone to understand the power in her.

Finn shuffles, turns his head away from the map and toward Poe. With a little limp he comes closer and when Poe’s face shows confusion as to his direction Finn laughs.

“The room,” he clarifies and then adds with the barest hint of teasing. “I need my socks.”

…

D’Qar really is beautiful. Once someone could get past the X-Fighters and sleek grey militant buildings of the Rebel Base, a whole forest would open in front of them. Poe had often used his leisure time to wander around the surrounding trees. The movement made him feel less like a pounding headache on the ground. Without the stars, space and a jerky fighter jet taking up all his attention Poe felt like he was a loose end being yanked every which way trying to find someplace where he could fit. Finn has his cane but for now he tucks it under his arm the way Poe holds his helmet. His walk is stuttered but not painfully so, at least from what Poe can tell.

He’s been using a little of his attention to track how Finn is moving and then a little to watch the way Finn’s face glows when he sees the way the forest is growing. Finn’s precence starts to make the whirlwind in Poe’s head grow steady until the only thing that his speeding thoughts are able to process is how Finn is touching the deep brown of a tree’s trunk, how he keeps looking over at Poe to gauge his reaction.

“It’s amazing,” Finn says after a while of easy silence. “I just— Its really amazing.”

“You said,” Poe dodges a whack from Finn’s cane. “C’mon. Don’t use your cane like that.”

“It’s my cane,” Finn strikes out again and this time gets his target. “I can use it however I want.”

Poe rubs the side of his thigh where the cane hit. It smarts but not enough to leave a mark.

“Remind me again why I brought you out here,” Poe says but he’s smiling too much to make the grumble sound believable. Instead Finn laughs at him as they come up on a stream. There’s a good deal of smaller bodies of water around the base. Poe hasn’t found them all but when he sees how Finn looks at this one he’s seized by the urge to find every single one.

“Never got to see this stuff while it’s actually running,” he says. Using one hand as a brace, Finn lowers himself to sit by the tiny river. While he starts slowly taking off his shoes and lumpy socks Poe settles in next to him. The air is still cold enough that Poe’s glad for his ugly sweater but Finn doesn’t seem to mind the bite the water still carries as he drops his feet in.

“Always frozen solid at the base,” Finn continues and Poe watches his hands dance while he’s talking. “I mean, yeah, because the whole planet was like a snowy wasteland, but also it was so depressing to see everything frozen all the time. It’s almost like there wasn’t anything that could have a different color than white or grey.”

“Or black or red,” Poe interrupts. The joke doesn’t land and outside he just shrugs. Inside his stomach takes a nose dive and now his fingers are twitching again. Poe starts taking off his shoes trying to distract himself from his brain starting to speed up again. His socks are pulled off to the ticking of his thoughts.

“No,” Finn says with a quiet voice, face ducked down and watching the river run around his feet. “Not even those felt different. Everything had been sucked dry, like the Star-Killer wasn’t just eating a sun but eating all the energy around it. It was very strange, especially— well especially since I knew there were other places that didn’t look like that.”

“I don’t think I could do it,” Poe says and splashes Finn’s leg when he puts his feet in the water. He’d been right; the water felt like it was full of ice chips. In an effort to stop the grimace of pain he knew was creeping onto his face, Poe bit his lip. “It’s not that I think living like that is impossible because, hey, lots of people live in weird sad places. But I remember what it felt like when Kylo was pulling things out of my brain.”

“I’m sorry,” Finn says and Poe lets out a laugh that he turns into a cough once Finn gives him a confused look.

“Listen buddy,” Poe tilts his head and smiles with a measured amount of softness. “The only person who owes me an apology for that mess is big, tall and ugly. Not you.”

“I should have fought earlier,” there’s a strange tenor to Finn’s voice now. Poe latches onto the sound, mental fingers trying to pull apart the layers until he finds its heart. “All those people—“

“All those people could be anyone,” Poe says and then, despite the way his heart stops, he lays his hand over Finn’s. For a moment, his entire body feels encased in stillness. “You have to make choices sometimes. Not good or bad ones, just choices. And when you make those choices you can’t let yourself get lost in all those times you didn’t make ‘em. You can only move forward, you know?”

“That’s— That’s actually really confusing,” Finn blinks and shakes his head. He hasn’t moved his hand but there’s still a fist clenched around Poe’s insides saying that maybe he will.

“But comforting,” he says with hasty reassurance and gives Poe an easy smile, fingers scrunching just enough beneath Poe’s that it feels like their hands fit perfectly. “Very comforting. You work on that in your bathroom mirror?”

“First time,” Poe says. “Some of us are born with the gift of wisdom.”

“Mm,” Finn nods in mock sage manner. “I thought you were just born with the best hair.”

“I’m very gifted.”

There isn’t enough distance between them and the base. In between the muffled clatter of engines being worked on and the slap of military grade boots Poe can hear the ambient crunches of nature like pin pricks of calm. He latches onto the idea of the forest as a safe place, then a place with no end, then his mind is spilling straw thoughts onto the floor and instead of watching Finn Poe is remembering the first time he took BB-8 into the forest. Like a film reel the memory keeps running through the projector in his head but Poe doesn’t know why. It doesn’t need to.

“Do you want to know something crazy?” Finn says. Poe snaps out of his memory, although the reel of it clicks steady in the background, and reminds himself to nod. His hand is being engulfed in a soft fire every time Finn moves. One of his fingers twitches, brushes the bend of it into Finn’s palm.

“I think this is the most still I’ve ever been,” Finn says with his eyes not on Poe or the water but toward the sky. He’s watching for something. A splinter of thoughts occur to Poe. What is Finn looking for? Poe draws imaginary straws trying to figure it out.

He knows what answer he wants, but Poe isn’t someone who always receives what he wants.

“Before,” Finn slips his hand out from under Poe’s and tucks his legs up, folding his arms around his knees. All the water covering his feet is glass-like, as if Finn is wearing thin transparent shoes, “we never had time to just settle. Didn’t really mind it at first, you know, ‘cause I didn’t know anything else. But then it started to wear on me, the constant moving. Here everyone has time. They take breathers. You’re all so—“

He stops, biting his lip thinking of the word he wants. Poe follows the strain of the thin skin trapped beneath Finn’s teeth. It would be wonderful to kiss that skin.

“I don’t stay still,” Poe says, a tumble of breathless words. “I can’t. Staying still is like an invitation for my brain to start spinning. I always had a hard time with it, you know, and it makes it hard to zero in on stuff. I want to be everywhere.”

“I’m still figuring out what I do,” Finn says and then purses his lips, shaking his head. “No, that’s not what I want to say. What I meant is that I’m still trying to see what I am. Where this—,” he gestures to himself. “Finn guy belongs. There’s a whole load of things in the universe that I have never even dreamed of. How can I know what I do if I only have this tiny slice of experience?”

“We have time,” Poe’s heart is jamming up his throat. “Anything you want to try figuring out first?”

Finn’s face goes thoughtful and then he tugs on the edge of his sweater.

“You wanna try and teach me how to do this?” he asks. “Maybe— maybe I could make something for Rey. When she comes back.”

Poe slaps Finn’s back, his smile toothy and stinging the corners of his lips.

“Sure buddy,” he says with the feeling of Finn’s palm above his hand still echoing on the skin. “You got it.”

…

Poe learns about the mission while he’s showing Finn how to do the first stitch on his fingerless gloves. Pava knocks soft on the open door and Poe glances up to her, taking in the way she is holding her arms stiff at her sides like there’s a rope around her elbows. Poe’s stomach clenches.

“They found a new First Order outpost,” she says. For a second Poe can’t look straight at her. He can feel something akin to excited anger. It’s a mix. Poe takes a deep breath and thinks of the forest. Of Finn kicking water up onto his pants. Anything to redirect that directionless emotion building behind his eyes into oblivion. “General Organa wants to see you about heading the mission.”

Poe glances back at Finn and Finn, solemn even with the pale blue needles in his hands moving with tiny shakes, gives him a firm nod.

“Go,” he says, like an order. “Whatever is going on, you need to be there.”

He’s been grounded for two weeks. Poe flew some small missions between hospital visits to Finn’s sleeping body but since he had woken up Poe didn’t feel like moving. Yet his fingers were still itching to hold a steering wheel and when General Organa gives him his marching orders Poe runs as fast as he ever has to his X-Wing. BB-8 tweets in rapid rhythms, all of her excitement contained in the way she is rolling through his legs while he jogs. The First Order outpost was found by a recon team that picked up their hailing frequency while going past an Outer Rim star system. With the short amount of time between them receiving the information and the Resistance being informed there had been an attack on the recon team’s ship. Poe’s helmet was clasped under his arm. He was only taking the Blue squad out for an assistance run but, with tight lips, General Organa had told him to call for the Red squad as back up in an assault if any of the First Order ships large enough to hold an army showed up.

A maintenance droid reads Poe a report, its voice modulated but still expressing a sense of exasperation for the way Poe isn’t paying close attention. There is too much going on around him. Orange jumpsuits climbing into cockpits, all with thrum of pre-flight anxiety moving through their bones. Droids and repair crews are running quickly around the landing strip. They scuttle from ship to ship and Poe is thinking rapid fire of what could go wrong. His mind leaps from getting hit with a missle and exploding into the vacuum of space to wondering if his crew is going to be okay. Most of them have been running missions every week since they blew up Starkiller base. His fingers drum on the helmet while the maintenance droid finishes up its report.

BB-8 trills loudly to get Poe’s attention, rolling gently against his calf. Distractedly he looks down at her and she swings her head toward the base beeping louder. Poe glances up and there is Finn, walking gingerly toward him.

“Thought I’d see you off,” Finn says as he gets closer. Poe can feel himself going stiff with unexpected excitement. How is he supposed to respond to this? He shakes his head, lets his hair flip a little and then shoots Finn with a flyboy smile. That’s what he’s supposed to do, isn’t it?

“I’m glad,” Poe says and then, forgetting himself for a moment. “I like the reminder of what I'm coming back to.”

“I’ll try not to get too banged up while you’re gone,” Finn says. He smiles back but its cracking at the edges. There’s something contained about the way he looks in his black pants and white standard issue medical bay shirt, almost like he’s trying not to climb into the ship himself. Poe’s old jacket is draped over his shoulders.

“Next time buddy,” Poe says, apologetic. He reaches out and shakes Finn by the shoulder. A thought strikes him and shoots through the muscles in his arm to tug Finn closer. Giving himself a slight boost on his toes, Poe kisses Finn on the cheek. His skin is starting to prickle there and Poe wonders if Finn has shaved yet today. Pulling back, Poe takes in how Finn’s face has become incredibly still. BB-8 is trilling something awful behind him, practically screeching how they need to get in the jet.

For the first time in a long time, Poe wants to just a wait a minute and see what happens next.

Finn takes in a deep breath and looks Poe in the eye. There’s nothing certain in the way he sweeps his gaze over Poe’s face but there is a solid quality to the set of his shoulders. Finn grabs the hand on his shoulder by the wrist, his thumb right against the bone. He tilts his head and presses his lips to the side of Poe’s knuckle.

“Come back in one piece,” he tells him. “So there will be a next time.”

The spot where Finn’s lips were is buzzing like an upset beehive. The stillness leaves Poe as quickly as it came and he takes his hand back, Finn’s fingers unclasping from his wrist in surprise. Instead of turning toward his jet he pushes forward, grips Finn in a hug. Their closeness is the narrow point of Poe’s universe for the minute that Finn’s arms wrap back around him.

 _This,_ he thinks. _This is what I want._

“You’ve got it Finn.”

**Author's Note:**

> did u like this fic? do u think u might like the occasional funny ha ha text post? do u love the color blue? come follow me on my [tumblr](http://avoidfilledwithcelluloid.tumblr.com/)


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